History & Mission

A Legacy of Innovation

Michigan BME provides leadership in education, training and cutting-edge research by translating science and engineering to solve important challenges in medicine and life sciences to the benefit of humanity.

Ours is one of the oldest programs in the country, with a history that includes early work with lifesaving clinical devices like the Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) heart-lung bypass machine and implantable electrodes that stimulate or stabilize brain function.

More recently the department has shifted its focus from designing devices to engineering at a more fundamental biological level - engineering tissues, changing genes, engineering artificial organs.

Department Mission

BME provides leadership in education, training and cutting-edge research by translating science and engineering to solve important challenges in medicine and life sciences to the benefit of humanity.

BME Timeline

1962 Biomedical Engineering Graduate program established

1996 Biomedical Engineering (BME) Department Founded

1997 Combined B.S.E./M.S.E. program established

2000 Undergraduate program established

2003 Carl A. Gerstacker Building opens

2005 Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Translational Research Partnership

2006 ABET accreditation

2006 Lurie Biomedical Engineering Building opens

2012 BME becomes a joint department in the College of Engineering and the Medical School